What's the difference between feature and bloat?

Your Java code doesn't run under the standard C library. It is designed to run in conjunction with a Java environment and that environment is about 40mb of memory. If you try to run 5 instances of the same program, it will still cost 40mb and not 200mb of memory.

Bloat is something you don't need. The sort of thing that's "handy to have" but not actually necessary.

Let's take for example the mkdep program. It has the options '-a', '-f' and '-p'. By default mkdep writes it output to a file called '.depend', so you can use '-f' to change that. If it simply wrote to standard output you would not need such a flag, you could simply redirect the standard output to '.depend'. The '-a' flag causes the output to be appended rather than overwriting the file, but with stdout and redirection you would not need this flag either.

This is a very simple example, but keep in mind that every bloat has to be implemented and maintained. The more parts a program has, the more opportunities for breaking it has. Even if a feature is useful you should ask yourself whether it makes more sense to break the program into several smaller programs instead. Take man for example: man is not a program that reads and displays manpages, instead it calls other smaller programs for each individual task. You could easily change the pager so that the result is displayed in for example Vim instead of less. This is in contrast to info, which actually does everything on its own when displaying a document. Info could have easily been broken into smaller programs, but GNU is notorious for bloat.

I thought firefox was a web browser.

Bloat is mostly a pejorative for "stop liking what I don't like". Actual bloat is parts of software in a big application that can be empirically proven to slow it down.

like pocket

what does that have to do with what he said

feature: the core parts of a piece of software, that complete it's original intention

bloat: extra features that you never use and you can't turn off, that eat hardware resources

user requirements for your most significant user bases.

Pocket doesn't run unless you intentionally activate it. The Pocket integration in Firefox is FOSS, in case you didn't know.

I don't think the user can tell, since normally we all dislike change, even more when we're attached to the product. I think the developer should know when is appropriate to go back and when it's just the userbase disliking new things.

Flash itself may be bad but the scenario described is not. Browsers have varying degrees of support anyway for almost all features which invalidates any expectations of standards, if it's going to be like that anyway then you may as well just dump all expectations and tell the user they need to have "something installed that handles X" like was the case with Flash.

This solves the compatibility problem as well as the bloat one, don't want video support? don't install a video player. Need a specific feature that the browser vendor won't implement? Install the correct module.

It also alleviates the language restrictions of forcing everything to be written in Javascript. The only concern I can see is maybe security.

The standards are supposed to be the end goal that the browsers strive to achieve. It is not bloat for Firefox to provide their official implementation of the standards that are in place. If you don't want video support, you simply don't use it! It's not going to affect one bit of your experience by letting the Firefox video playback routines sitting on your hard drive doing nothing, it is not bloat because you decide you don't need it when it's obvious that the general case does need it.

Something I hate about the word bloat is how abused it is. I see all the time peoples main reason for hating on a program is because it's "bloated" and they didn't have an immediate use for every single feature.

It bloats the program; that's feature creep. That's also time and energy not used for better stuff.
Also, you're lucky we talk about a configurable program, because this could mean a retarded fat dependency too.
>support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/applications-panel-set-how-firefox-handles-files?redirectlocale=en-US&as=u&redirectslug=Options window - Applications panel&utm_source=inproduct
As a result of this, firefox doesn't let you handle mimetypes as you like. A web browser that also read videos when you have a video player installed is bloat. The end.

Features are bloat. The goal is to use less and less until finally you use nothing at all. Then, like Uriel, you realize that life is harmful and you deprecate yourself.

Living is bloat.

I can't tell if this is satire or not.

Dipshit, I'll bet you have lynx installed too. Stay in last decade, please.

Feature is anything I like.
Eg, Eliza therapist bot in the Emacs text editor
Bloat is anything I don't like.
Eg, Firefox Hello
Hope this clears things up for you, and enjoy your stay on Holla Forums.

A web browser that implements Javascript when C already exists is bloat. The end.

This thread is satire. Bloat is meaningless.

every time the popup comes up it's bloat
every time you start firefox pocket gets loaded
it's bloat don't defend it

retarded

FUCKING BLOAT

feature: something I use
bloat: something I shitpost about on Holla Forums

Bloat is often defined as a feature, product, or service that is not used by the majority of users on a specific platform or software.

For example: a service that phones home for marketing purposes would be considered bloat, because despite whether the average user knows about or cares about the feature, chances are they would not willingly enable said feature.

Bloat can also transcend it's typical definition if there are no other alternatives around for an extremely complex product say, a web browser, but the product you're using continues to add features you don't desire but can't remove or modify. At that point, it can be argued that the producers of the product, regardless of intentions, are bloating the software to capitulate to the larger market.

Feature: a function of a program with a size justified by its usefulness
Bloat: a function of a program with a size that is not justified by its usefulness

don't ignore the system drain faggot

not bad fam

...

Bloat is a feature added to the detriment or slowdown of the primary task/intention of the program.

I didn't realize you were still using an Intel 386 where you only have 16MB of RAM in your computer. Forgive me, I didn't realize how restricted your computing environment is.

RAM is there to be used.

I can't stand when people say this because on its own that's not an argument. RAM is meant to be used by not all of it by 1 program, just because people have a lot of RAM today does not give developers an excuse to be lazy and hog all of it for themselves. Some people actually have other valid uses for their memory and would rather not waste it on a bunch of programs that use embedded webkit for their UI taking up 300MB each.

Food is there to be eaten so I should just submit to becoming a lard-ass.

perception
/thread

no I run Firefox with tree style tabbs and a shit load of tabs open some times passing over 100, not to mention all the other add-ons i install becasue I actually want their features like ex-hentai easy, and video downloadhelper

I have 32GB of ram and somehow you're more retarded

good thing we all perceive you as a faggot

tapu tapu :'DDDD tapu

Apples and oranges. Like I said, RAM is there to be used but software is also meant to be optimized to use the least amount of resources necessary.

This is a lie. I don't know if you were around in 1996 but I can definitely tell you that is was worse in 1996.

Bloat is orthogonal to core functionality.

Any serious software project must have a main purpose. This purpose must be established from day 1 and development must stick to it. Devs should not decide one day that their program that is for doing X suddenly needs to do Y. This is retarded, they should just go and start a new project for doing Y.